TdF

2011 Mileage: 2,867

Yesterday was Tour de Frankenmuth. It was way too early of a morning with a 4:30am wake up to meet with Chris out at the shop to drive to the race together. We still got there with barely enough time to get registered, ready and warmed up. An 8:15am start is really early.

I lined up with the biggest field I've ever raced with in a road race, a full field of 71 Cat 4 racers. The course was three laps for 47 miles, all relatively flat but with a really strong headwind at a few points. I spent most of the first two laps sitting up near the front in the top ten riders. I wasn't sure how the race was going to go and with no other teammates in the race I didn't want to get left out if a break actually looked like it might succeed. This caused me to put myself in the wind at the front bringing back attacks a fair amount. I realized by the start of the third lap that it didn't seem like any breaks were really going to succeed so I went to the middle of the field to sit in for a bit and try to recover. Then with 5 miles to go I worked my way back up to the front to make sure I was up there for the finish and to go with any last ditch effort attacks that might try to go. There were a few attempts but again with the size of the field nothing could get far. The end of the course was a downhill followed by a quick climb and then a left turn to a long gradually downhill finishing stretch through town. The field had been a bit sloppy all day and I was willing to put my money on a crash and I didn't want to be a part of that. As we hit the downhill I went to the front and then was second wheel going up the climb. Not sure exactly where I was going through the left hand turn but it was definitely top 5. We came around the corner and everything opened up. The finishing stretch was actually a lot longer than I realized and a bit confusing with no banner going over the line, nobody actually knew where the line really was. I just went as hard as I could towards the crowd and actually heard the inevitable crash occur right behind me. I'm not sure how bad the crash was but it definitely didn't sound good. I ended up rolling across the finish in 4th.
Not the result I was really hoping for but I guess I really need to get accustomed to the fact that I can't win every race I enter, especially as I continue to upgrade. I managed to stay upright, get some more points towards my upgrade, and walk away with a little money so I guess I should call that a success. It was a well run event and the venue is awesome with a finish in downtown with a pretty big crowd gathered for it. I can definitely see how it drew such a big field to race.

Now it is time to bury myself in books for the next week with my CFA exam next Saturday and a lot of reading left to do between now and then.